Pages

Monday, March 2, 2009

Gardening Journal

I answered another bloggers questions today and realized that my response was long enough to be a blog post...so here is some of it...

I've only been gardening for a couple of years now, but here is what I am up to:

Question 1 - What are you doing right now to get ready forthe growing season?

Currently, I am putting clear greenhouse plastic over the part of the garden that I intend to plant in the spring so that I can begin to defrost the ground. Later, I will use this plastic to cover plants that I put in early. I got this idea from The Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emery. She recommends starting the spring seedlings indoors Mar 1 and putting them out (in your defrosted bed) April 1, with the intent of covering them, of course. I'm starting some of the cold weather crops (like broccoli) indoors while seeding lettuce, spinach, garlic chives, and onions outdoors in a cold frame. You can see Carla's Early Spring Garden Plan here. As for the things I'm seeding in the cold frame, I am following the recommendations in our local extension office's annual Garden Calendar. For folks in my area, the extension agent recommends adjusting the dates on the calendar by a week or two for our part of the state (later rather than earlier ;). You may consider contacting your local extension office to find out if they put out a calendar for your area ;)

I'm also getting and installing solar electric around our garden area so that the deer will not destroy everything. I'll put peanut butter on the fence so that they will all come and have a taste, experience the shock, and stay away from the garden. I want to get the fence up now so that they do not get into the habit of coming to the garden. It is very hard to discourage deer when they know how good the stuff inside is.

I'm also getting ready to order perennials (just a tree, some berry shrubs, and some strawberries...probably). Fedco will ship them at the appropriate time for my growing season, but the order deadline is Mar. 14.

These are all new things that I am doing this year, but I am taking the advice of seasoned gardeners.